Paper Flowers
by UltraVioletSpectrum
Summary: Near had always thought that reality was a harsh and scary place. He'd found a way to avoid reality: he created his own world that was diaphanous and imaginary to everyone but him. Songfic. Oneshot. R&R, please!


-**x**-  
_The weird creations of endless sleep  
Those beings prepared by thoughtless insanity  
In a state of tranquil mind so deep  
Somewhere inside imaginations vanity  
_-**x**-

Near had always thought that reality was a harsh and scary place. He'd never liked it. Never. Rather, he found it as a malicious game we play in our minds, desensitized by the world around us. Sometimes we didn't want to play, but we had no other choices. Near had found a loophole in this rule. Instead of living in this cruel place we call life, he'd created a world of his own to live in, a world diaphanous and imaginary to everyone but him.

---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---

_Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming  
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights  
Oh how I long for the deep sleep dreaming  
The goddess of imaginary light_

Near tossed and turned in his bed as a storm raged outside. He couldn't sleep, too much going on outside to sleep. The insistent rain slamming repeatedly on his window, the wolves in the wind howling as they hunted their prey, the bruised sky rumbling its fury, and the lightning glowing bright as the sun as it flew down to Earth in a flurry of electricity, kept Near from sleep. And not only that, he felt panicked and scared. Of what, even he himself wasn't sure. These things were not his friends, but they at the very least kept him company. He wanted sleep to come, but he couldn't. Though he didn't like the storm, he couldn't imagine sleeping in a desolately quiet room. He needed noise to sleep. If he didn't the quiet would pierce his hearing like a particularly high-pitched whistle. Soon the storm lost its temper and started to fade, and Near closed his eyes, letting himself become washed over in sleep.

_In my field of paper flowers  
And candy clouds of lullaby  
I lie inside myself for hours  
And watch my purple sky fly over me_

The sun gave off a pinkish hue, turning the sky a very pale shade of rose. The clouds, stretched out into graceful wisps of cotton, were a lavender-purple color. The grass that Near lay in was turned a pale magenta from the sun's rosy rays. Near's stomach rose and fell occasionally as he breathed gently, staring up at the clouds floating past him slowly but surely. Near loved to come here in his dreams. All he really needed was to relax and forget about everything. It seemed to him that all the bad things in the world disappeared once he came here, like the light of a candle going out. A clump of cherry blossom petals floated slowly past his eyes, carried by a gust of wind. The meandering breeze ruffled his snowy white hair before it flew away. Near closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. No field in the world of actuality would ever feel as real as this.

_I linger in the doorway  
Of alarm clock screaming  
Monsters calling my name_

Near had his window open to let in a bit of early summer breeze into his stifling hot room. He had placed the final block on the top of his rather large tower of building blocks he had been working on for the past twenty minutes. It was quite impressive, if he did say so himself. He imagined it as a huge skyscraper, packed with several people. He smiled to himself at the thought. Abruptly, the door to his room flew open, and out careened a certain blonde-haired teen looking for mischief. Mello flew into the tower of blocks, sending them flying all over the room in a shower. It was like 9/11 all over again, Near thought despairingly. Oh well, he'd just re-make it again. Mello stood there, laughing triumphantly at his completed task, but his laughter faded when he saw that Near made no reaction. Mello asked Near what was wrong with him. Near replied simply that nothing was wrong with him as he picked up the blocks and began stacking them again. Mello rolled his eyes and moaned, muttering that Near really got on his nerves sometimes. Near could care less what Mello thought, and ignored him still as he left the room, pouting. Soon after he forgot that Mello had even come in, too absorbed in the tower than anything else.

_Let me stay  
Where the wind will whisper to me  
Where the raindrops  
As they're falling tell a story_

Near sat on his bed, cross-legged, staring out the window. It was rainy today. Near loved the rain. He thought it was wonderful, and it made the landscape gorgeous afterwards. Sometimes, though, he thought he was the only person in the world that liked rain… and if he wasn't, the people who did didn't like it with a passion, like he did. It seemed to him that every time a raindrop hit the window, it sang out a musical note. It became somewhat of an orchestra. He could hear the wind flying around playfully outside, carrying the rain to his window instead of on the ground. He could hear its mellifluous voice whisper sweet nothings into his ear, attempting to caress him through the glass. He smiled in spite of himself.

_If you need to leave the world you live in  
Lay your head down and stay a while  
Though you may not remember dreaming  
Something waits for you to breathe again_

Near was sicker than a dog that day. He had a throbbing headache that he had attempted to quell with painkillers, but so far they hadn't done their job. He also had a horrible cough that made his throat sore, and it still hadn't gone away after drinking what seemed like several liters of ice water and ingesting several dozen cough drops. Adding to that, he also had a bad stomachache that only worsened when he ate something. He'd resorted to staying in bed all day, reading books he'd already read a million times before, and drawing pictures with a dull pencil. His pictures usually came out wrong, causing him to crumple them up into balls and toss them to the floor. He'd wanted sleep to come, but he couldn't through the wall of hurt surrounding him, blocking out fatigue. He wished he could go to his imaginary place. Surely there his head would be cleansed of its painful throbbing, making him freer to think? Surely there his throat's rasping would die down so that he could actually breathe normally again? Surely there his belly would feel pangs of hunger instead of pain? Finally he lay his head down onto the pillow, feeling drowsy now that the painkillers were setting in. His eyes fluttered, willing for sleep to come. Finally sleep invited itself into his mind, and sudden exhaustion flooded over him. He closed his eyes, allowing a very slight smile to play up on his lips. Finally.

---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---**x**---

* * *

I love this so much! Definitley one of my best stories yet! AND this was my very first attempt at a songfic, and it came out beauteous! This is based off the song "Imaginary" by Evanescence. If you haven't heard it, go listen to it now! I used the lyrics from the Origins version, though, so you might want to listen to that one first. I chose Near for this because... well, because! It just seems fitting for him to be the one with the childish mind, and the one with the biggest imagination. L came in a close second, but this song just clicked with Near right off the bat.

The poem used at the beginning was written by MoscoMoon666 on YouTube, who is one of the best AMV makers around! She used it in her "Bambi- Imaginary" video, so I asked permission if I could use it for this, and she said yes, just so long as I give credit... so here I do so! xD

Uuuh... what else? Oh yeah, this story had one teensy problem. I started writing this, and thought I could type it all in one sitting, but while I was in the middle of typing the paragraph for the last stanzas, Word Processor just shut down without asking me if I wanted to save. Oh my god. I was so flustered about it, I almost started crying. I was one sentence away from being done, and here it just closed down without a stored document. My first attempt was VERY good, and I still think it was better than this. I need to put a mental Post-It note on my forehead that says "_**ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SAVE!!!!**_" Seriously. -facepalm- I'm still kind of upset about it even now.

Kudos and a muffin to everyone who took the time to read this, reveiw, and all that stuff! Also Kudos and a muffin to the oh-so-awesome Mosco for letting me use her poem! ALSO Kudos and a muffin to Evanescence, one of the most awesome bands ever, for making this kick-butt song that inspired me to go so far as to write a songfic for it!

Long author's note.... again. 8D;

Thanks again!

~_UltraVioletSpectrum_ (aka Mo)


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